Commentary on Economics, Information and Human Action

Month: September 2011

Michael Giberson A few weeks back Lynne drew attention to an interesting property dispute between neighboring farmers in Minnesota, currently the subject of legal action (see news summary here, related court decision here). In brief, the issue is pesticide drift from conventionally farmed crops onto a neighboring organic farm, and whether the organic farm can … More A Coasian look at pesticide and genetic drift

Michael Giberson Perhaps you’ve seen the video of Elizabeth Warren, hoping to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, in which she declaims that since roads and police and fire protection are funded through taxes, people have no real claim to their income or wealth against a government that wants to take it. After … More On the obligations of income-earners and property-owners to pay taxes

Lynne Kiesling Amazon’s announcement yesterday of their Kindle Fire tablet differentiates the tablet market in one discrete jump. Anticipated for months, the Fire does indeed compete head-to-head with the iPad, but not by mimicking its feature-rich and flexible platform. Amazon has made a strong Schumpeterian move to differentiate the market. Amazon’s move follows a storied … More Razor-razorblade, printer-cartridge, … tablet-media

Lynne Kiesling Last week the new Economic Freedom of the World report was released, and it’s pretty sobering. The Fraser Institute and a large international coalition of think tanks collaborate to publish this annual report, and the research papers written over the past 20 years using the EFW data indicate the positive role that economic … More New Economic Freedom of the World report, and some suggestive connections

Lynne Kiesling In previous posts on the TSA and security here, here, here, and here, I’ve argued emphatically for taking a relative risk assessment approach to our security and surveillance policies and spending. Courtesy of Meg McLain, here’s a vivid graphic representing why that’s a good idea, and why we should not be spending so … More A great relative risk graphic for terrorism

Michael Giberson Daniel Yergin’s peak oil commentary in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal has set the econoblogosphere to chattering, or at least those of us in the energy corner. In addition to the clash of the titans, i.e. James Hamilton’s “More thoughts on peak oil” rejoinder to Yergin, the mere mortals are going at it, … More Don’t Peak: On ill-considered peak oil debates